As I’m waiting for the traffic to clear on I-80, I’m reading this article on SFGate regarding the lack of airport activity at SFO. One person they interviewed was none other than SF’s ragtime guitar god Craig Ventresco who plays regularly at Atlas Cafe and occasionally at other Mission venues such as the Knockout and Amnesia:

“This is eerie,” said guitarist Craig Ventresco, an airport artist-in-residence who was flat-picking “Ain’t She Sweet” for a crowd of one person on a landing near the door to the parking lot. “If this is a sign of the times, it’s frightening.”

Ventresco, whose fingers were flying faster than most planes, said the plummeting economy was making ordinary people as broke as musicians.

“That’s not good,” he added, with a grim smile.

What a treat it would be to happen upon his playing enroute to an always abysmal family holiday.